


let the winds of winter bend our wing, i the skylark, you the starling

by peterstank



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-05 13:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18367256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterstank/pseuds/peterstank
Summary: The first time she sees him, he is clutching his harp, long white fingers dancing over the gilded strings. She rolls her eyes at the sight, dismissing him for just another pompous lordling-type with a stick up his arse, but then he opens his mouth and begins to sing.In the north, their music is loud and lurid. They dance the way they speak, with no barriers between;you go this way ser, well I’ll go that way, and we’ll see where we end up.The young man with the curtain of silver hair is the song itself, the music is within him, and he is cracking open his very soul to let the sound of it fill the hall within which they dwell. It is a tangible thing, seeping into her pores, making her skin erupt in gooseprickles.Only carefree skylarks sing like that.Lyanna has never heard or felt anything like it before.





	let the winds of winter bend our wing, i the skylark, you the starling

“Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman’s name.”  
—G.R.R.M, Clash of Kings

 _Lyanna_.

~*~*~

The first time she sees him, he is clutching his harp, long white fingers dancing over the gilded strings. She rolls her eyes at the sight, dismissing him for just another pompous lordling-type with a stick up his arse, but then he opens his mouth and begins to sing.

In the north, their music is loud and lurid. They dance the way they speak, with no barriers between; _you go this way ser, well I’ll go that way, and we’ll see where we end up._

The young man with the curtain of silver hair is the song itself, the music is within him, and he is cracking open his very soul to let the sound of it fill the hall within which they dwell. It is a tangible thing, seeping into her pores, making her skin erupt in gooseprickles.

 _Only carefree skylarks sing like that._ Lyanna has never heard or felt anything like it before.

Everyone is silent and still, and the littlest ladies and oldest maids alike are starting to weep, hiding their faces behind kerchiefs and Lyanna swears to herself, _swears it_ , that she will not be one of them.

But he strikes the harp with a careful practised hand and the melancholic of the melody cracks her heart in half and makes her stomach turn to stone.

She cries, and she hates herself for it, feeling a fool like one of those plumped up southron ladies from court, doting and besotted with the concept of love itself. She is not a honey-eyed maiden with her head in the clouds, dreaming of flowery knights like fucking Florian and Jonquil.

But she does cry, and Brandon teases her so she tips the rest of her wine over his head. He laughs, of course, because he’s Brandon and she’s Lyanna and no matter how many times she hits, kicks, scratches, and screams at him like a shadowcat in heat, she’s still just his _little Lya._

She storms back to her own bedchambers that night thinking of those jumped-up squires and that crannogman, Howland; she thinks about her brothers and the wildness they all share; the hot streak in their blood.

Brandon, brash and charming. Benjen small and sweet. And Ned, her Ned, who has always loved her best of anyone.

They are all strong, all brave. Lyanna doesn’t get to be brave; she is to wear pretty blue dresses and do her hair up fancy and walk like there’s a rod strapped to her back.

 _I want to be brave,_ Lyanna thinks.

~*~*~

The first time he sees her—really sees her—she’s covered in dirt and blood and grinning wolfishly. It sends his heart palpitating in a way he didn’t know it could. She makes his heart beat to a different tune, he realises. This woman warrior sings her own song; the song of steel on steel and the howling of wolves.

Rhaegar finds himself grinning back at her. He can’t help it, and Arthur surely notices for the way he is looking between them. 

She says his name, stripped of title and eminence: _Rhaegar_. It rolls off her tongue in that strange northern brogue and he finds that he has never liked the sound more.

The blade glints as the moonbeams strike it, falling away. “My lady,” he says. “You have my most sincere apologies.”

“Would you be apologising if I were a man, or would my throat already be slit?”

He is too stunned to answer but Ser Dayne throws his head back and barks a laugh that surprises them both. “I like her,” he announces blithely, a rare sentiment and a high honour for anyone. 

“I truly am sorry,” Rhaegar tells her. “My father… he was convinced you were—never mind, it matters not. I wouldn’t have gone along with it, but I must confess I was curious as to who you were.”

“Well, now you know,” says the lady, her porcelain features streaked with crimson blush.

“This is bloody brilliant,” says Ser Dayne. “I can’t wait to tell Ashara.”

“No!” The lady protests, eyes wide. “You _can’t_ , please. No one can know.”

Rhaegar tilts his head. “You don’t want the glory of defeating those squires?”

“I don’t _need_ glory, and those stupid cunts wouldn’t know the back end of a lance from the tip, anyway. They were easy pickings.”

He can’t remember the last time he’s grinned so wide, can’t recall ever hearing a highborn lady speak this way. She is magnificent.

“Please,” she begs, “My father will be furious if he finds out it was me. _Please_ don’t tell?”

Rhaegar looks her up and down; with her dented, ill-fitting armour he never would have guessed what lay beneath. 

“May I kindly have this?” He asks of her, holding up the scraped excuse for a shield she had dropped in their scuffle; a slab of weirwood with a laughing tree face painted onto the front in a blood red shade.

He had brought his sword to her neck and Arthur had worked her helmet off, and then her hair had spilled forth in a cascade of ebony tresses and he had stepped back just to see her beauty as a whole. 

“What the fuck would you want with that?” She demands, face all scrunched up in a way that is impossibly endearing, everything about her is endearing, and he is stupidly thrilled with her harsh tongue and brashness. 

“I henceforth declare the Knight of the Laughing Tree vanquished,” he announces formally, though he is grinning like a fool squire. “He’s very dead, isn’t he, Dayne?”

“Very dead indeed, my prince,” says Ser Dayne readily, and the lady’s beam is like the first rays of a dawn sun. Rhaegar has never seen a sight so beautiful.

He asks her to sit, and she does, mindless of the dirt beneath her. Arthur is soon gone but the wood is not empty; it is full up with a tangible static, an ever present heat that swirls in the air around them, fervent and stifling.

They are laid bare in front of one another; beneath her dented scuffed up armour he is sure that he can see her very soul, and it is one of the purest light. Like the moon she glows, pale and slim, but tempered hard.

What he would give, Rhaegar thinks suddenly, to be as steadfast as the northmost star: to be able to stay here with her and her blinding light.

He would gladly give up his sight if it meant feeling this way, always.

The fire dances against her moonglow face like a gentle kiss, tentatively coming to know her, tickling those pale snow cheeks.

He can’t help it when he falls in love with her. It happens quicker than the pull of sleep; a lull that is at first gentle and then as persistent and agonising as waves slapping against a slate cliff.

~*~*~

Everyone is on their feet, laughing and cheering. There is a brightness to many eyes and the glint of gold catching in the sun, passed grudgingly from hand to hand, is everywhere.

But Lyanna does not see any of it. She sees only him, with his dark armour and his tangled silver hair.

He is strange to her. In a way he reminds her of the effigies buried beneath her ancestral home. Outside he is stone to all, impenetrable. But inside there is a story to be told and Lyanna will be damned if she’s not going to figure out how it ends.

Only it begins just then, this tale. She doesn’t see it coming even when he’s riding right up to their little section of the box, a crown of blue winter roses hanging from the end of his lance.

They are her favorites. They’ve always been her favorites. She had told him so when they’d spoken just the once. She wonders if this is why he’d asked her, mouth bent with a smile far too crooked for a prince, _and what’s your favourite flower, my lady?_

Rhaegar Targaryen has eyes only for her, the lady in the silver-blue dress with the pearl wolf on her bodice, smiling a secret smile that will one day be just his.

When the crown of winter roses is laid in her lap all the smiles wither away, but he cares not. None of the rest of them really matter anymore. All that matters is this song, the one they will dance to until the day they die.

Even if it hadn’t been a necessary thing, he still would have done it.

The laurel smells like home and for a split second she lets herself believe that she is back there, tucked away in the glass gardens with a book and a stolen batch of lemon cakes, hiding amidst the verdure of ice blue petals.

Lyanna’s cheeks are a striking vermillion bloom. Her pale fingers brush over the soft ice blue petals in her lap, rosy lips parted with shock.

He would face the outrage, the ire; face every consequence a thousand times over if he could see her wear it just the once.

Lyanna does not speak. She does not dare glance to her right, where she knows the Martell princess sits. Nor does she look to her left, where her betrothed is likely red with rage in his seat.

She doesn’t touch it. She doesn’t wear it. The tourney ends and she retreats quickly to the nearby godswood, her breath quick and heartbeat quicker.

Around the band, barren of any thorns, there is a scroll wrapped tight. Lyanna unfurls it with shaking hands. In that moment she is furious and shamed, but at the sight of his slanted looping penmanship the anger melts away like snow under dragonfire.

_Meet me in the sept tonight. I have many things to tell you, my laughing lady. -Rhaegar_

The thrill is not easily quelled and she tells herself it is a stupid thing to go. Her heart answers back, already resigned, that a lady cannot refuse a summons from her prince.

Lyanna’s never wanted to be a lady, but any excuse will do.

~*~*~

“What the fuck were you thinking?!”

She comes to him with the cool grace of a winter wind, making his cheeks flush red just at the sight of her. He has never felt so youthful, so childish, as he does around her. She has ignited a long gone-out flame within him; filled him with a peculiar warmth. Where there was once abyssal, chasmic sadness in the pit of his belly there is now a spark of dream and wonder.

“Lyanna.”

She rolls her eyes. “Rhaegar. _What the fuck were you thinking?_ ” 

“A lot of things, but mainly that you looked beautiful.”

Shocked into silence she simply stares, and then moves with a slowness. Lyanna holds a lantern out before her which she sets against the wooden floors of the sept. The shadows shape her, bending to her will. She is an ethereal beauty, this one. Strange and sprite and stoic.

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

Rhaegar opens his mouth to speak but no sound comes out. This makes her smile. Her shoulders sag a little as her tension melts away, leaving her vulnerable and expectant, big grey eyes gazing up at him with obdurate curiosity. He can see storms in those eyes; snow swirling against dark clouds, lit with fluorescent lightning. If winter was a woman, it would be her.

Lyanna takes him in hand. He stares down at hers, small in his own, her fingers pale and slender. If he is a willow, she is a weirwood; solemn and solid with an ancient tranquility, present in every moment yet with her eyes trained on the past.

He cannot think of Elia when he is with her. It is as though there are only two people in the world, him and her. No one else comes for it is the hour of the wolf, so they stay within the holy ground with the shadows of the gods looming over them.

It is in these shadows that he tells her, the secrets slipping out into her waiting lap. He wants nothing between them, no walls or barriers. And if he is to be king after his father falls, there is no one else he would desire for a queen.

Lyanna protests, she argues _Elia, Elia, Elia._ Rhaegar cannot deny the guilt that makes his chest quake, but if anyone will understand these matters of heart and love it will be his lady wife.

With a hesitant hand he brushes a strand of her burnt umber hair, fallen from the simple styling. His fingertips ghost her cheek and he is startled by the coolness of it, the jolt of belonging he feels, and he knows that were they ever to be come one the fire in his bones might for once be tamed.

The lines upon lines of prophecy he has been reading have made him romantic, and so he imparts upon her a desperate request: “Help me, starling?”

She gives him a demure sort of look that he figures must be rare for her, gazing up at him through thick dark lashes with a hint of a smile twisting her rosy lips.

“I’ll be your friend, Rhaegar.”

Rhaegar cannot hell it when he smiles, and to hide it he presses a kiss to her knuckles with the unspoken promise that whatever this is, it is not over yet.

~*~*~

The first time he writes to her, Lyanna nearly dies of shock.

Whatever they had shared during the tourney, she had tried to forget it despite her promise. It seemed to be far too much a flight of fancy, the idea that he could ever want more.

During the long journey back north her heart had ached for him and she had cried many stifled tears, made silver in the light of the moon that poured through the glass windows of inns and keeps; coating her in light, a cool blanket of luminescence.

She had tried to forget him yet dreams have wills of their own and she sees him in hers every night. His moonglow hair and peculiar indigo eyes, glinting like amethysts in the candleglow. Some of the dreams are pleasant in nature and leave her breathless upon waking; she sees his smirk, mirth twisting his features, or watches his sharpness melt away into something tender as he gazes upon her, reverent.

But then there are the other dreams, the terrors. She sees him standing waist-deep in water, the sun catching on his armour. It is dotted with rubies and upon seeing it she is strangled with a sense of foreboding. He smiles at her but it is a distant look, dazed and almost troubled. His name is on her lips and then blood is soaking through his garments, seeping to the surface and making the water run red.

Lyanna tells no one of it. She knows that many are curious and even, in Robert’s case, furious. She endures their inquires but does not answer them. She refuses to debase what it is that she and Rhaegar shared to a mere springtime dalliance through _gassing_.

She keeps it all locked away in a secret corner of her heart, and slowly this corner grows dusty and dark and dotted with spider webs like an unused broom cupboard.

Then she gets the raven. It is by chance or fate that she is standing in the rookery when it comes. She is gazing out over the lands that sprawl in a seemingly endless sweep around the castle. It is summer now and the grasses are green, the sky grey and still. Against the heavy clouds she spots the dark wings and her heart twists for somehow she knows.

The seal that affixes the missive is not that of a three-headed dragon like she expects, but rather the beast bears only one head and is curled around the body of a great big wolf. Her heart stops at the sight and her hands go so numb she nearly drops the letter.

But then there is a creaking sound, light feet on wooden steps, and suddenly Benjen is there. He is so flustered he does not notice her slip the missive quickly in the folds of her gown.

“Ned is here,” he gasps out, and then runs back down the way he came.

Lyanna follows of course, for it has been five moons since she saw her brother. Not so long really, but a day without Ned is hard enough.

Of course she cries when she sees him riding through the gates of Winterfell on the back of a big black palfrey, dusted white from the light snowfall and grinning gloriously. He wears simple clothing and has tied his hair back in the Northern fashion and she feels comforted to know that no, he still has not forgotten where he comes from.

His hug is warm and his arms are strong. She can remember with such clarity when they were both small; chasing one another around the battlements and playing come-into-my-castle.

Lyanna asks jokingly, as always, “Is that really you, big brother?”

Ned smiles softly and wipes her tears away. “Aye,” he says back. “It’s me.”

After that it’s the four of them together again, at least for a while. They sit around Mother’s bed where she lays frail and dying. The silence has a substance to it; an underscore of fear and regret. Waves upon waves of sadness roll off of each Stark in that stifling room.

They drink later. Even little Benjen who is not so little anymore. Brandon gets the ale and they pass it all around, tucked away in one of their hidden corners of the keep. No one comes for them. It’s like they don’t exist at all, like they never have, and under that comfort Lyanna feels safe and free.

So she says to Ned, chest burning with anger, “I don’t want to marry Robert.”

These are the words. The crossroads is to her back and she has chosen her path. It is a dangerous one, full of vipers and brambles barbed with poison. _Wolfsbane_ , she thinks.

These are the words that start a war.

And Ned, ever the loyal friend, defends Robert until he’s blue in the face. Until she brings up Mya Stone, and then he halts. He can’t deny it. “He’ll never keep to my bed,” Lyanna says. She knows it.

“He is a lord,” Ned protests, and how foolish that is. “He’ll try for you, I know it.”

“A man’s nature cannot be defined by the title he bears,” Lyanna snaps back, and Ned falls silent.

She has ruined the moment but Benjen’s eyelids are drooping anyways. Brandon stares into the depths of his half-empty mug, mouth twisted somewhere between a grin and grimace.

“We should sleep,” he says finally. His voice is soft which is a rare thing. Brandon’s eyes are sad as he regards her. He knows how she feels about it. Lyanna’s been griping about the betrothal since the offer was accepted, since Father agreed to sell her off like some brood mare to a man she barely knows. There’s a small part of her that hopes if she complains enough he might call it off; that he might love her enough to make her happy.

“I’ll escort you to your room,” Ned tells her.

And Lyanna accepts because they’re not allowed to go to bed angry at each other. It’s their little rule. If they fight, they make up before sleep claims them. Many times it’s resulted in her slipping into his room or the other way round, but tonight she loops her arm through his and trembles a little against the cold of the night. Ned halts their gait to slip his cloak off and wrap it round her shoulders, all gallant like a southron knight. “I thought you couldn’t get cold, she-wolf.”

Lyanna elbows him, and he laughs, and then it’s over. It’s not his fault really, she supposes.

 _Besides_ , Lyanna thinks, her hand slipping to her pocket where the letter dwells still, _there’s another way out of this mess after all._

~*~*~

The room is filled with the soft mewling sounds of their newborn babe. Rhaegar looks upon him, at his fresh pink skin and that shock of silver hair atop his head. _He is a dragon_ , Rhaegar thinks. The name  _Aegon_ slips past his lips without him considering. It is a safe name, a good name. Better luck to it than Aerys. It is the best name for a future king and he says so.

Elia tilts her head. Her skin is warm and flushed, gold in the dim light. A true beauty with a better mind than his own. “Will you make a song for him?”

“He has a song,” Rhaegar says, but his voice is not as firm as he would like it to be. “He is the prince that was promised. His is the song of ice and fire.”

Elia is used to the way he speaks at times, almost half in riddle. They had jested together at first, when he had begun pouring over all of those books of prophecy, ancient tomes with weathered yellow pages that felt as though they might crumble with the breath of a summer breeze.

But now he knows. He has seen, he has felt. There is truth to this prophecy, the song. Something stirs around them, a heavy looming presence that slips ever-more present through the crevices and cracks of the space around them all. While he sleeps it threatens to ruin him. While he speaks it threatens to strangle him.

He feels it in the room with them then, along with something else. A shadow of light and warmth and love. Is it Aegon he feels?

“There must be one more,” Rhaegar says, rising and walking to the window. Outside the stars glitter, a vast twinkling array against an indigo sky. They glow for him now. For the babe in Elia’s arms. They glow in the vain hope that upon the last evenfall there will be someone left to stare up at them. “The dragon has three heads.”

Rhaegar plucks idly at his harp. His eyes drift northward. The song is a sad one. It makes him think of a hundred hearths and a laughing lady. Though his heart is heavy on this night, it lifts a little at the thought of her.

“I cannot bear you anymore,” Elia says then. Her voice shakes and he knows that she is worried, not that he will force her but that she has disappointed him.

No, she could never disappoint him. She is a strong one, Elia, with the heart of a warrior. He will admire her until the day he dies. But he cannot love her, not like that. Not when his soul is already blossoming, delicate and blue, for another.

“I know that,” Rhaegar replies, and turns to face her. She knows of course, of those vague threads that could bring the world to ruin with one simple tug. They had been half her making. But now they must decide. They have come to the crux here, and either way death is possible if not certain.

But as long as there is a chance, for the babes...

“Two of your children have been born from the sun,” she says then, and her voice shakes but her dark eyes, beautiful obsidian jewels, glitter with something fierce and cunning. There is so much fire in this one. “Let one be borne of the moon.”

Rhaegar smiles a true smile then. He walks over to the bed, settling beside her, and gently cradles the back of the babe’s head. Would that he could protect him from everything.

“It will cause trouble,” he warns.

This amuses her. “When have you ever done anything without causing trouble, my prince?”

His thumb plucks another note on the harp, a high one; the sound is clear as a bell, like a warning chime.

~*~*~

He comes to her in dreams and yet to see his face, to see him standing before her, is another thing entirely. She had forgotten the little things, like the way he constantly seems to teeter on the edge of movement, bountiful energy contained within him; or the sorrowful set of his face, until he lays eyes on her. And then he smiles, and it is like sunshine after a rainstorm. It fills the whole room and Lyanna feels her heart stop.

“Lyanna,” he says. There is a beauty to the way it rolls off his tongue, a strange and wonderful lilt like a one-word song.

“Rhaegar,” she returns, daring to step closer. Being this close to him, his body just inches from her own, warms her to the bone. Her skin is searing.

He takes her hand in his own, and their fingers fit perfectly together. When he raises her knuckles to his lips and kisses her there, Lyanna is sure he must have left a mark. She has been branded by a dragon prince, kissed by his fire, and nothing has ever made her feel more alive.

Those eyes lock onto her own, obsidian in the dimlight, so churning with a softness, a tenderness. Though he has been emboldened, trekked across the country and met her here in this dusty room in the Crossroads Inn, he is still so tentative with her now. Like she is a small pretty ornament of blown glass he is terrified of breaking.

 _That won’t do,_ Lyanna thinks, and surges forward to capture his lips with her own. _I will show him how sharp a she-wolf’s claws can be_.

But of course she is only snow, melting under his touch. Lyanna realises then that she has lived so long in the cold she never realised she was numb until he filled her up with flames. The blood rushes from her cheeks to her toes, flushing her skin all over.

“Lyanna.” Her name is a breath from his lips, ghosting her own as he breaks away. His voice sounds so sad, so pained; yet so hopeful, too.

 _Love makes people do stupid things,_ her mother had told her once. Lyarra Stark had stared at her daughter with those bright grey eyes. _Love can melt castles and burn cities. Love can tear people apart heart from limb._

_But love can heal, too. Love can bring it all back together, no matter how bloody and bruised you start. Even love can make a scar disappear if you look upon it as a thing of beauty._

_This is a stupid thing,_ Lyanna thinks. But she cannot deny it any longer, won’t deny it. They have been tethered together and she realises then that if it came to it, she would die for him. If he would let her, she would fight for him. And if he loves her, she’ll love him back. Now and always.

It’s a stupid thing when she reaches up and fumbles with the clasp on her thick sable cloak, the teeth of a snarling wolf biting cold against her fingertips, reminding her of who she is. It’s a stupid thing, when she pulls at the ties on her dress and lets it fall to the floor in a pool of light blue silk.

But her heart; beating loud like a drum inside her chest, so loud armies could march to it.

It’s a stupid thing when Rhaegar surges forward and kisses her again, lifting her up and around his waist and carrying her over to the soft featherbed.

A stupid thing, Lyanna thinks, and yet it is the only thing that matters.

~*~*~

The sea is crashing against the walls in which they dwell, churning with anger and protest. He can feel it. With every wave Rhaegar feels another part of him crumble away.

In the dim light of the chamber, he can hardly see their faces. This story is one that takes place in the dark, light fighting against shadow, images hard to recollect.

Elia stares at Lyanna. Her eyes drift to his love’s stomach, which has not yet swelled but holds life. She is sure.

Elia bursts into tears, but she is smiling. A beautiful big bright smile, his favorite one from her. She rushes forward and envelopes Lyanna in her arms. She calls her sister and presses her lips to the she-wolf’s brow. A sun kiss.

_a thousand thousand dragons sprang fourth and drank its fire_

“We can do it, I know it,” Elia says, to them both. Her jaw is set, she is determined. Mind made up and there is no going back now. If they look back, they are lost. “We can overthrow that madman.”

That has always been the plan. Since Harrenhal, before the spider spun his web, fine and thin and glinting with false dew tears. Now it will be war, as it always was meant to be, but their victory is not set in stone as it once might have been.

It could have been a clean thing, but now it must be jagged, dripping with dark blood, and the lives of those that he holds in his heart hang dangling in the wind.

He thinks of the children. Three of them, now. The dragon, the world aflame, the promised prince, the bleeding star.

“I’m sorry,” Lyanna says to Elia, guilty for dragging her good name through the dirt, for taking a crown the woman never wanted.

“There is nothing to forgive,” Elia replies.

The she-wolf’s claws are sharp but she melts in Elia’s arms, and Rhaegar cannot help but walk closer and enclose them both in his own. “Starling,” he whispers, kissing the top of his love’s forehead. The same he does to Elia, his sundrop.

The three of them against the world, Rhaegar thinks. Do they stand a fighting chance?

He wonders, standing there in the halls of his ancestors. This was their home. The sea was their army, the wind their aid. He feels a spark of strength, a ghost of hope.

~*~*~

A quaking.

She can feel it in the four walls of her heart, which is steadily crumbling to ruin now. The loss chokes her and burns her, salts her skin with endless tears.

Rhaegar’s arms are around her. His presence is solid and sure, but she cannot take comfort in his warmth.

“It is my fault,” she sobs, but inside she knows: it is their fault. They were far too hasty, far too fool-hardy, and now this—a fulfillment of prophecy, a song of the heart—has become little more than a mummer’s farce in her eyes. She had not expected, not estimated the danger.

None of them had thought anything like this could happen. Aerys was mad, it was true; but how could Brandon have been so foolish? How could Father have gone along with it?

Hadn’t they gotten her _letter?_

Rhaegar strokes her hair back and whispers soothing words, but it does nothing to quell the turmoil threatening to tear her apart. Heart from limb.

“I am so sorry, my love,” he says, and Lyanna hears the way his voice shakes. She hears the grief underlying his melodic tones. It only makes it worse.

She wants nothing more than to lash out, to scream at him. What right has he to grieve? If they had been smarter, if they had waited...

But she cannot, for she is just as at fault as him.

All that remains is the sorrow, bitter tasting. She is an orphan, now, and short her oldest brother. Wild, sharp-witted Brandon who had been there from the start and now was no more; who called her Lya and took her riding in the night. They would sneak away under the moonfall and hide amongst the folds of the wolfswood, passing a wine skin back and forth; remembering better times.

Those are all that remain to her, now. A remembrance of days long past.

Lyanna cries, grasping his hands for he is the only thing she has left, and despite the tide of anger and regret threatening to choke her where she stands, she lets herself fall against his chest and sink toward the floor.

Rhaegar catches her. He will always catch her before she falls.

~*~*~

She lays on her back, dark ebony tresses spilling over the red silk sheets. She is bare, languid, skin glossy with a thin sheen of sweat. His she-wolf is not used to this southron heat, but she has not once complained. She is far too tough to admit any discomfort.

Rhaegar runs his fingers over the strings of his harp, plucking mindlessly. Still Lyanna listens, head tilted to the side, a pleasant smile breaking her features.

The swell of her belly has grown over the last few moons. The sight of it never fails to churn up such yearning; he is desperate to meet this child, _their_ child. He wants to hold his little wolf in his arms so badly.

And he misses his own children. Sweet Rhaenys with her big black eyes, gazing up at him with adoration and love. He misses her laugh, a sound as clear and pleasant as a bell chime. And Aegon, his first son. He is little more than a babe, still. If they survive this, Rhaegar hopes that he and the little wolf will be close.

He can see a dream, as tantalising as none has ever been before; three small children running through marble halls, their laughter echoing off the walls. He can see their smiles; the way Aegon’s silver hair catches in the sunlight. They are beaming, bursting with love. Three dragons lounging in the peace of summer, chasing at being knights and conquerers.

Lyanna reaches over and cups his cheek. Her touch is gentle and her smile is fond. “You’re brooding again,” she says.

Rhaegar hums. He is hesitant to voice the dream for fear of cursing it. Better to keep it locked away in his heart where no one can see.

“It’s a boy,” Lyanna tells him, all stubborn and sure. “I know it.”

Rhaegar raises an eyebrow. He reaches out and lays a hand over the swell, wondering. A little boy, he thinks, and imagines dark eyes, purple in the candleglow. Hair like Lyanna’s, thick and dark. It feels right.

Rhaegar kisses her navel. He wants to gather her up in his arms and hold her forever, but Lyanna has other ideas. She traces her hands up his arms, pushing her fingers through his hair, and tilts his head up. Then her lips meet his own. She tastes of Dornish fruits; sweet plums and pomegranates, zesty oranges. Rhaegar loves the way she kisses, the way she tugs at his lower lip and touches him everywhere; but it is never enough until he has all of her.

“I want you,” he says.

Lyanna shifts against the mattress, her eyelids fluttering a little as pleasure courses through her from his touches, and spreads her legs around his waist. “Have me, then.”

~*~*~

There is a war raging around them. It is all Lyanna can think about, day and night. Battles being fought, but not for her sake, not really. The lie of her abduction was only the turning point, the whip which spurned the horses into charge. Always they had been teetering on the edge, and this is a necessary thing. If all goes well, peace will follow.

A part of her wants nothing more than to fight, but what good would that do? And there is the babe to think of.

Her little baby, her wolf prince. He is a quiet one, almost always still. More than once she has felt fear strike her in the dead of night, mind racing after she realised he has not moved all day. She places her hands to her belly and prays, begs him to at least squirm.

Sometimes he does her one better and kicks, right against her palm. He will be a strong one, too.

Rhaegar sings to him often, and sometimes she will wake to the feeling of a flutter of kisses on her belly. The babe always stirs then, restless like he wants nothing more than to be held and loved by his father.

It is an odd thing to imagine, having a babe of her own. She was never the best with children. She spent most of her time with the stableboys, dirty and ragged and learning words ladies shouldn’t know—words that never fail to make Rhaegar blush like a maiden, even in the midst of lovemaking.

Of course, she is no lady. She never was. More horse than woman, that was what Brandon always said.

She’s still no lady; she’s a queen now. Though the only crown she may ever wear is one of thorns and roses, Lyanna does not mind. She recalls the moment he had placed the wreath in her lap often, when all of the smiles died and the clouds covered the sun. The world had darkened, but to her, everything became clear. Her heart was wakened; a light shone before her of the purest kind.

Lyanna watches him don his armour. It holds a dark, smoky sheen, like a metal made of shadow. The red rubies embedded in his breastplate catch the light from their lantern and wink at her like teasing stars.

“It’s a bit ostentatious,” Lyanna admits.

Rhaegar grins at her; wild and feral-like. “Good,” he replies, adjusting his cuirass. “That’s what I was going for.”

Lyanna rolls her eyes. She pushes herself off of the bed, which has become an unwelcome haven over the last moon; she would much rather be riding her gelding, Snow, or sparring with Arthur.

Only, when she had awoken a fortnight before to blood between her thighs, the smell of it like iron, the feeling of it slick and sticky in the Dornish heat...

She is only six moons along. There is still time to go, and the baby had no real interest in coming as of yet. But Rhaegar worried even still and so he had come back from Starfall with a mid-wife, Wylla, who told her the very same thing she had said herself; _it is only a bit of blood._

Lyanna helps Rhaegar affix his gauntlet. Then she wraps her arms around his neck, yearning for the days when she had been able to press herself flat against him; to feel his heart beat against hers in the very same rhythm, like they were dancing to the same tune.

“I will miss you,” Rhaegar says.

Lyanna wrinkles up her nose. “I’ll be glad to be rid of you,” she japes. “It’s been an absolute nightmare holed up in this broken tower with no one but a sullen dragon to keep me company.”

“Don’t let Robert Baratheon hear you say that,” Rhaegar warns, and she laughs. It lights up his face, like always, and she thinks not for the first time how sweet he is.

Rhaegar never wanted this. He never wanted a war, he never wanted bloodshed. He hates fighting. But he will have to, if they are to end this.

And perhaps, when he wins—for he will win, she can feel it in her bones; he must—Lyanna can speak to Ned. She can make him understand. And then, when that is done, she can hold little Ben in her arms again and thank him at last for helping her escape.

“Rhaegar,” Lyanna says, for he has drifted off again into his dreams of sorrow and loss; she looks at him hard, bores her eyes into his own, searching for his attentions. “You must win.”

Her throat is closing with desperation and grief, now; he _must_ win. She _must_ see Ned again, she _must_ hold Ben. This cannot be the end.

“I will do my best.”

“Never look before you lunge,” she says, remembering all of the things Brandon had drilled into her as he hacked away at her with a waster, “don’t put all your weight behind every throw, it’ll only drain you. And remember: just because he’s down doesn’t always mean he’s dead.”

Rhaegar nods. He has taken her words to heart, she knows, even if they are things he has been told half a million times in the sparring yard. They are welcome reminders to him; he can fight. He’s a good fighter. Perhaps not as good as Arthur, but he can beat Robert. She knows it.

But then another fear grips her—the one she has refused to entertain whenever it crops up, ever the pesky snark; what if he should meet Ned upon the field of battle? What if he should strike him down without realising it, until it is too late?

Rhaegar takes her hand, and that calms her. It always does. His hand is like the safe-ground during a lightning storm.

“You are the strongest person I know,” he whispers. “Will I have your strength with me, when I fight?”

“Aye,” Lyanna breathes. “And my love.”

Always her love. Even if he should fall, even if they should all die tomorrow, she will keep on loving him for always; for their love is in the air, in the stars. Their love is eternal, a wild beast that will endure for all nights to come. Their love will live on like ripples on water, echoing throughout time.

Rhaegar seals her promise with a kiss. His lips are salted with tears, and she realises they are her own.

It is the last promise she will make to him, but not the last one to leave her lips.

~*~*~

The water is rushing all around them. Their horses are tired and restless, but they push on, hacking and swinging at one another. Rhaegar thinks that they are either an imposing sight or a ridiculous one. If the gods are looking down on them in this moment, all they will see is two fools squabbling over a lost lady love.

Robert is injured, but he is angry. Anger makes a man ten times as strong. His movements are slowed, jerky, but they still pack the same force as before.

Rhaegar dances out of the way, the hooves of his steed working through the murk. He feels clumsy and worn out. He is tired. Rhaegar never wanted it to come to this, but if he can end it now—

The blow comes faster than he can even blink, accompanied by the whinnied protest of his destrier and a resounding roar from Robert Baratheon.

Rhaegar does not even feel the pain. He sees the blood spray, a stream of it, stark against the grey sky. Rubies fly from his chest, glinting and twinkling with a strange fire.

His chest caves against the strike. The wind is knocked out of him, and with it his last word:

 _Lyanna_.

He hopes, desperate, that it will be carried south and she will hear him, she will know. Before his eyes flutter closed, so heavy are they, he thinks of the babe. His little song...

_If only you knew how much I could have loved you._

~*~*~

She tears apart his last gift for her, a garland of winter roses, in her anger. Lyanna’s chest burns white hot and in that moment she is sure that she could breathe fire.

No doubt he will come for her, now. If he does, she will spit in his face. She will tell him—how she never loved him, how she always loved Rhaegar; that he is a whoring drunkard who will never be half the king her husband should have been. She will curse him and rip him apart with her bare hands.

That is when the first real pain comes, sharp within her, and she feels the slickness between her thighs so suddenly.

Only when she looks down, her dress is not soaked with the waters of her womb; it is stained scarlet with blood.

Lyanna gasps. The pains are too close together and they hurt, more than she thought they would. She cries out, calling for Wylla, begging for Rhaegar.

Her vision grows dim as shadows dance before her eyes. She sees her husband, her love, smiling so brightly the whole room lights up; it does not matter if all the other smiles die when his is the only one that matters.

Clarity comes sparsely in those long hours of labour, her brow brazing with fever; she smells the roses, and the blood. The ice blue petals are scattered over the bedsheets, which are now ruined, swatched with crimson.

She feels as if she is being torn apart, heart from limb. The babe is ripping himself out of her, the dragonwolf, the prince who was promised. His claws are sharp, she thinks, gripping the pillow beside her and screaming from the searing pain between her legs.

It is only after Wylla tells her, breathless, “One more push, my queen,” that Lyanna realises she is crying.

Despite the pain, she breaks down into sobs. Damn it all, this babe will wait for her to grieve; the world will wait, time will wait. She will stay here in this moment with the one thing she has left to her name—departed as she has from her home, from her family, from her honour.

“Your Grace,” Wylla grips Lyanna’s calves, her nails digging into the flesh, urging her. “You must push.”

“I can’t,” Lyanna cries, and feels weak.

But she pushes, for it hurts so much now that there is nothing else left to do. _Crying will not bring him back to me_ , Lyanna thinks. _Wishing will not bring him back to me. Nothing will bring him back to me._

Yet there is a piece of him left. A fragment of his memory.

Her babe does not cry when he is pulled from her, but he makes soft mewling sounds as if to reassure her that he lives.

Lyanna holds him just the once, with no strength left to her name. He takes after her, with a ghost of dark hair upon his head and those glinting obsidian eyes. They will be purple in the candleglow, she thinks.

She has never loved anything or anyone as much as she loves this babe. She would fight for him, die for him.

 _Will_ die for him.

It is with him against her chest that she feels her life slipping away, along with all of that blood. Wylla is desperate, mopping it up with towel after towel and scrambling around, fearful and frantic, and it is not until Lyanna hears the song of steel that she orders the nursemaid to stop.

Someone has come for her, be it Robert or Brandon—

But wait, it cannot be Brandon... Brandon is lost to her...

“Take him,” Lyanna begs of Wylla. “If that’s Robert down there, tell I’m I’ve died. Say the babe is a bastard borne of rape—he might let him live, he might—”

“I will,” Wylla says. There are tears on her cheeks that look like fallen stars. She pulls the babe from Lyanna’s breast and sets him gently into the nearby weirwood cradle. The little king.

The song tapers off. Lyanna knows the end is near; this is not an enemy she can bargain with, a fight she can win. And at least, she thinks, her gaze drifting to the window where the sun still shines; the world still goes on— _at least I will see him again._

She hears the footsteps but cannot bring herself to rise. The figure approaches, leather gambeson stained with blood and dirt, emblazoned with the direwolf of her house. That is when the last of her endurance fades; it is not Robert, it is—

“Is that really you, big brother?”

And Ned kneels beside her, his face smudged with Dornish sands, streaked from the tears already falling. His mouth his smiling but his eyes are swirling with grief. She reaches out for she must touch him, must assure herself that he is real. “You’re not a dream...”

Ned begs Wylla with everything he has, and he sounds like the little boy she once knew, always at battle with the inevitable, stubborn as all the seven hells. “No, no maester, just listen— _listen to me, Ned!_ ”

And he listens as she leans up, whispers the secret that has reaved and ravenged the kingdoms, that has torn her love from her desperate grip. She whispers Aegon Targaryen, for it must be, he must bring the dawn; she begs him to protect her son, for Robert will kill him, she is sure. There is nothing that can save him except lies and lies and maybe—just maybe—Ned’s love.

Her brother stares down at her, uncomprehending for what feels like years and years, before he blinks and everything seems to fall into place.

“Promise me, Ned.”

He nods.

Her son, little Aegon, is placed into his arms. He looks down at the babe, crying for her and for him, for all that they have lost. Maybe he blames her as she blames herself, for Brandon and Father.

Not the babe, though. Ned would never.

She reaches for the both of them, hoping to hold onto the last solid lifeline left, but her hand falls limp halfway there and with her last breath she murmurs a man’s name.

“Rhaegar.”

~*~*~

Ned does not realise she is gone for many moments. He is dazed, staring down at this babe. Aegon Targaryen, she had called him. Not _Sand_.

He loved her, and she loved him.

Ned clutches the babe close, and the little wolf finally makes a sound—a contented whine, his small arm breaking free from the folds of his swaddling blanket; tiny fingers brushing Ned’s jaw.

It is not for Lyanna that Ned comes to love him, not for the likeness and not in the grief. It is for this: for the innocence in his eyes, the sweetness of his touch, the warmth Ned feels while holding him.

A hand falls onto Ned’s shoulder and when he looks up he sees Howland, a crying ruin. “Ned,” he whispers. “Ned, she...”

He seems to notice the babe for the first time, blinking slowly. He chokes a little. “Ned—”

“His name is Jon Snow,” Ned says. “And he is my son. Do you understand me, Howland?”

Howland protests. “Ned, he’s the rightful king of the—”

“Robert is king.”

“But—”

“She told me to protect him!” Ned is yelling now, on his feet, feeling foolish clutching the tiny newborn baby while he screams at his true best friend. “Robert _will_ kill him! He’s a _Targaryen_ , Howland! You saw what he did to the little children.”

“A Targaryen,” Howland repeats. “So they...”

“He is a bastard,” Ned corrects. “My bastard. My _son_.”

Howland seems to crumble into a million pieces; a light breeze could blow him away. He stares down at the babe for a long time, as does Ned, and they watch their king. He is a silent little thing, with sad onyx eyes, as if he knows the pain they bear, the loss he already suffers.

“He’s your son,” Howland relents.

“My son,” Ned says again, tasting it on his tongue. “I will protect him with my last breath.”

This he promises to the babe and to Lyanna, who lies still and unmoving in the bed of blood and roses.

 _Oh Lya_ , Ned thinks, his heart breaking. _Only you could tear apart the world without even trying._

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This has been sitting in my drafts for a while so I thought I might publish it. Thanks ever so much for reading! 
> 
> ~lya rose


End file.
